All data and engineering teams are faced with a constant inflow of organizational, technical, and interpersonal problems and the ability of your team to have business impact will depend largely on how effectively it can move towards optimal solutions to those problems. In this article, I discuss four communication techniques that improve the ability of a team to solve problems.
Work from the problem to the solution: move in the right direction.
When presented with a problem, first spend time elucidating the problem space before addressing potential solutions. Interestingly, I think the intuitive and most common approach is to do the opposite: present and advocate for your solution. I think the reason for this is that people tend to assume that others understand the problem as clearly as you do, that you have a full understanding of the problem, and that you understand which aspects of the problem are the most critical to solve for the business. Thus, the only thing that is interesting is the solution you came up with – a solution that is either clever or based on your notable experience.
The problem though is that these assumptions are usually wrong. Typically if you spend time first fleshing out the problem, you will realize that other people on the team have context on the problem that you don’t have. Or that they do not share an understanding of what the problem is or that there is disagreement about what aspects of the problem are the most critical to solve first. Often you will realize that people are focused on solving the technical problem but that they do not have a good understanding of the business problem. It is critical that the business problem is clearly fleshed out before addressing the technical problem.
Recommendation. Spend time talking about the problem before anyone presents solutions. It will make sure everyone has the same context. It ensures that the business problem is the focus and that people will agree – before presenting their solution ideas – which aspects of the problem are the most critical to solve. This process helps remove ego from the conversation, which can develop when a group of smart highly experienced present different solutions that incidentally emphasize different aspects of the problem. Time spent on the problem space consistently will help you identify better solutions, more efficiently, and with less drama.
Split-tracking – prevent circular and chaotic conversations.
I have seen a number of conversations about thorny problems go in circles and not only fail to identify good solutions but even make little progress towards a shared understanding of the problem space. How do you prevent this from happening? The primary thing to do is to keep your conversation organized.
One way to do so is to use a technique called split-tracking. Split-tracking is a technique, in which you identify that more than one issue or concern has been raised, bring group awareness to this observation, generate consensus that there is more than one issue at play, and then push others to focus on one issue at a time. Why does this help? People often don’t realize that they are conflating two issues so they don’t realize when they are jumping back and forth between these issues. If these issues are not explicitly identified and separated, it can be hard to probe and press a person’s thinking on an issue – they can unconsciously side-step into the second issue. If there are multiple people discussing a problem, it is possible for people to start going in circles if different people re-direct the group to a secondary issue and then another person brings it back to the first issue.
Recommendation. Be on the lookout for multiple underlying issues and concerns. If you see them, stop the conversation and say, “I am hearing two issues here. One is issue $X and other is issues $Y. Which one should we focus on first?” Make sure other people realize that there are separate issues – even if they are correlated – and get them to agree to work on them separately. In general, think like a scientist – care about the taxonomy of your problem and neatly classify all the sub-problems that exist and their relation to each other (i.e., this is a subproblem of this bigger problem). You can work towards a solution much more effectively, if the problem space is well organized and explicitly understood by everyone in the conversation.
Empathy – prevent friction and “land mines” from stopping forward progress.
Have you ever been in a meeting discussing a problem, making some progress, and then just suddenly had all forward progress come screeching to a halt? Usually this happens when people become defensive or if the conversation triggered an emotional response in someone. How do we prevent this from happening? Although each individual needs to work to keep the bigger picture in mind and to keep their ego out of the conversation, you cannot control other people’s reactions. So what can you do?
Recommendation. Work on being more empathetic in your communication. Carefully consider how others view the problem and how some aspects of the problem may impact them and their work more than you. Consider that even if they have less relevant experience than you, that they still want their viewpoints to be considered and valued. In general, approach people and their thoughts with curiosity. Try to clarify your understanding of their perspective and make it clear that you are spending time trying to understand their views.
If you do this, you will be less likely to trigger an emotional response that will put a lot of friction between you and your solution. You will make people feel heard even if the solution that is ultimately arrived at doesn’t solve their main pain points. When you approach problems empathetically, it is also easier to build consensus and excitement in the group, which is critical. Identifying the solution is not the final step – implementing the solution is, and you want a motivated team to tackle that step.
Emphasizing empathy when working with others has a few other advantages. One, because empathy is driven by curiosity about someone’s perspective, it makes it easier to identify genuine issues that you hadn’t been considering previously, thereby enriching your understanding of the problem. Two, it will help you identify nuances in the concerns of others, providing opportunities for split-tracking and organization of the conversation. Three, empathetic communication enhances psychological safety of the group, which in turn means that all people will feel comfortable voicing their concerns and insights. A group that can communicate openly will be better at fleshing out the full problem space and thereby will be better at identifying the optimal solution.
Lastly, I would like to note although people inherently vary in how empathetic they are, it is also a skill that can be cultivated. So make it a mindset that you work actively to engage in. Cultivate your curiosity. If you struggle with it, try meditation. Its core teaching is the power of developing an open loving curiosity about the world. I’ve spent a week in silent meditation, and I can tell you that if you can find the in and out flow of your breath to be fascinating, then it becomes easy to be intrigued by the perspective of your peers.
Monitoring – keep the conversation on track
The part of the brain involved in understanding and solving a problem, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, is distinct from the part of the brain, the medial prefrontal cortex, that is involved in monitoring your environment and behavior for errors that signal a course correction is needed. I have noticed that leaders, who are great at moving a team towards optimal solutions, are able to keep this monitoring brain area highly activated even as they also help the team move towards a solution. They tend to be constantly scanning the conversation at a meta-level looking for issues that will derail it. So what type of issues are they monitoring for?
Establish what you are monitoring for and set the conditions. To know what to monitor for, you first need to clearly identify, at the start of a meeting, what your agenda is and what the basic problem(s) is that you will address. Once there is consensus here, it will be clearer to you if the conversation has moved off track and what you should be monitoring for. Moreover, it also ensures that you have needed conditions for keeping the conversation on track. For example, given your agenda, you should evaluate whether you even have the right decision makers in the room. Do you have unnecessary people who can push the conversation into tangents or are you lacking the needed people so that even if you make a decision, you may not be able to act upon that decision?
Conversation below the right level? Is someone “going into the weeds” by diving into a technical explanation that isn’t needed right now? Monitor for this and pull the group out quickly. At best, it is just a waste of time. At worst, it will derail the conversation.
Conversation above the right level? Similarly, thoughts can steer the conversation to a level above the agenda. For example, if your company recently switched to a pods organization and there is some question about how to best handle ownership of one line of work in this new pod structure, it can be easy for the conversation to suddenly be about the pods themselves – whether they are good and how to change and improve the pods. This level of conversation would be above the one set in your agenda, is not one that you want to or are capable of addressing in your current meeting, and if you even were interested in addressing it, you probably don’t have the right people in the room to do so. Pull conversations back down to the appropriate level if they go above it.
Conversation moving tangentially? Conversations can also move laterally away from the agenda. Monitor for people who raise issues, even if they are correlated, that do not fit in the current agenda. If you are focused on understanding one technical problem, be wary if another connected problem is raised. Does this other problem truly need to be incorporated into the problem space you are fleshing out or can this problem be worked on separately? If you see this happen, quickly note it to the team as a problem for another day if that is what it is. In conversations about interpersonal conflict, be on the lookout for other types of tangents. For example, “whataboutism”, in which a person intentionally directs attention away from one problem to another one. You stop making progress on an issue when you stop addressing it.
Does the conversation have good pace or has it become stuck? Another thing effective leaders do in conversations is to monitor for whether the conversation is moving forwards on time or whether people have started to “spin their wheels.” It is critical to flesh out the problem space but you have a limited amount of time to do so. I recommend considering the 80/20 rule of business in this context. For every sub-issue in a problem space, you will arrive at 80% of the possible insight and understanding with 20% of effort. Sometimes, you really need to dive deep and understand subcomponents of the problem more deeply. But if there are multiple sub-issues in a space, there is opportunity cost for doing so. Thus, instead push the conversation forwards to cover the other sub-issues. Once you have the problem space fleshed out, you will be better situated to understand where the deeper work is needed. In other words, avoid premature optimization when discussing and solving problems.
Conclusions
As you deal with new problems that are technical, organizational, and interpersonal in nature, I would encourage you to use these four approaches to help your group move more quickly towards an optimal solution: 1) go in the right direction by working from problem to solution; 2) prevent circular, chaotic conversation by split-tracking; 3) remove friction and land-mines by emphasizing empathy; 4) monitor for conversations becoming stuck or moving above, below or tangentially away from scope set out in your agenda.
It is not only critical that the leader of a team uses these techniques but it is also important that everyone in the group understands them and advocates for them during conversations as well. A team will move slowly towards the optimal solution if they depend on their leader to consistently course correct them. To build awareness in the group, identify these concepts and terminology and consistently bring attention back to the concepts and terminology. Once the terminology is part of your group’s idiom, you will hear people in your group besides you course correcting the group without your input.